Start with the fo­cal point

I be­gin by paint­ing the face, try­ing to stay true to what I see in my rough sketch. Faces are usu­ally the start­ing point in all my paint­ings. They’re my favourite thing to paint, which gets me into the right mind­set quickly. Hav­ing a some­what fin­ished face also im­proves the look of the en­tire paint­ing, which makes it more fun to work on.

Colours and val­ues

Now that the face looks about half­way fin­ished, the rest of the im­age needs some at­ten­tion. I grad­u­ally erase the draw­ing on top as I paint all around, mainly fo­cus­ing on the body. I ad­just my val­ues, strength­en­ing the over­all con­trast to en­sure the paint­ing reads well at thumb­nail size. I also in­crease the sat­u­ra­tion of the colours to make for a more strik­ing cover im­age.